In some part of France, the traditional Christmas dinner center piece is a roast turkey with chestnuts.

Recipe for 8 people:

1 turkey (a 4kg bird will be perfect)

1 tin chestnuts

200g smoked pork belly

2 onion

1 carrot, peeled, washed and chopped

150g celery, washed and chopped

2 cloves of garlic

1 sprig of thyme

some oil

16 potatoes

Trim, season well and oil the turkey. Place the garlic, thyme in the turkeys cavity. Place it on one side onto a large roasting tray, start your oven at 200 degrees Celsius.

Put your turkey in the oven and roast it. Turn your bird around every 15 minutes for 1h. Advice for roasting a turkey here and here.

Half way through the cooking place the finely chopped onion, the chestnut, the diced up smoked pork belly and the potatoes (peeled and washed) into the roasting tray.

When the turkey is full cooked, take it out of the roasting tray along with the chestnuts and potatoes. Take the excess fat out. Put your tray on the range, add 1 chopped onion, the carrots and celery and sweat them off for about 10 minutes. Then, deglaze you tray with a glass of white wine. Allow to reduce down by 2/3. Then, add a pint of water, allow to reduce by half and strain this jus into a sauce boat.

Serve your turkey with the chestnut to one side of a hot tray and the potatoes to the other side and the jus in a sauce boat.

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